Creature Features as a subgenre of horror tend to be in direct response to the cultural anxieties of the people that create them. The most obvious example, of course, is Godzilla. A film produced by Japan in the wake of America’s nuclear assault, it’s easy to see why a giant lizard that feeds on radiation would be terrifying for the audience it was created for. For its part, The Burrowers is a 2008 horror-western set against the backdrop of the American frontier in 1879. Written and directed by J.T. Petty and starring Clancy Brown,William Mapother, Laura Leighton, Karl Geary, and Alexandra Edmo, The Burrowers is an exploration of the evils of settler-colonialism and white supremacy through its protagonists’ search for missing settlers.
The Hypocrisy Of The Settlers In The Burrowers
The Burrowers follows Irish immigrant Fergus Coffey (Geary) as he searches for his lover’s missing family in the wake of a mysterious violent attack. Assuming this violence was committed by Native Americans, he helps gather a search party of locals and military presence to find the missing family members. But just as quick as they gathered, these searchers part ways. Henry Victor (Doug Hutchison), the cavalry officer in charge of the military aspect of the search party, tortures an innocent Sioux tribe member they captured for information so violently that Coffey and his men separate from the military escort in disgust.
Though Coffey and his men are disgusted by the outright torture they witness, they themselves are not much better when it comes to their beliefs about Indigenous people. The main motivator for trying to find the missing settlers, other than simply locating them, is the belief that the missing women have been abducted by Native Americans who, if not stopped, will rape them. Coffey and his party reiterate several times throughout the film that the longer it takes the party to find them, the more likely they are to be assaulted. Not only have these women not been abducted by Natives, but this outrage at the presumed assault they are experiencing is used as justification for the party’s own violence against Natives. All the while, the only instance of sexual violence present in the entire film is at the hands of a white settler boy who kisses and is implied to have the intent of raping an unconsenting girl paralyzed by the burrowers before he realizes she is awake. Every accusation that settlers hurl at the indigenous people they dehumanize is itself a confession of their own behavior.
It is the settlers themselves who stir conflict in the film. These men are so blinded by their racism against Native Americans that they ignore several clues as to the real culprits of these women’s disappearances. At one point when Victor is torturing a Sioux tribe member, the victim explains the disappearances are the responsibility of the burrowers by using a term that is only used to describe animals. Coffey and his party acknowledge that this term is not used for humans and still presume he is speaking about another Native American tribe. They project their own dehumanization of indigenous people onto an indigenous man himself and in the process, further delay their discovery as to the true identity and nature of the burrowers.
‘The Burrowers’ Has Similar Creatures to ‘Tremors’
Like the graboids of fellow horror-westernTremors, the titular burrowers are a species of subterranean monsters that have reemerged after several generations and feed on humans. Unlike graboids, the burrowers’ main food source was once buffalo. However, in the wake of The American Bison Genocide— an effort by the U.S. Government to hunt buffalo to extinction in order to drive out the Indigenous populations that relied on them for food — they now hunt people. The Burrowers paints a harrowing picture of settler-colonialism. The land itself rebels against the presence of these colonizers. The burrowers themselves do not simply devour you whole like a Graboid: their saliva renders their victims immobile, and they bury them breathing, waiting for their prey to rot before eating them alive. Unfortunately, the burrowers do not only target settlers. Like the consequences of real-life colonialism, the violence of the burrowers too falls upon the Indigenous populations inhabiting the area. But like many of the environmental consequences of colonialism, only through trust in Indigenous knowledge is there even a chance at defeating the burrowers.
Where a story like Tremors is, at its core, about community and working together, The Burrowers is a cautionary tale about what happens when people refuse to acknowledge the humanity of those they consider lesser. Even the most conservative, gun-obsessed citizen of Perfection, Nevada jumps at the drop of a hat to help out his fellow community members when the graboids attack. Differences in ideology, culture, or race don’t matter in the face of a community that genuinely cares for one another. And to an extent, the diversity of thought present in Perfection is what helps defeat the graboids in the first place. In Tremors, Burt Gummer’s (Michael Gross) knowledge of guns is just as important in defeating the Graboids as Rhonda LeBeck’s (Finn Carter) knowledge of geology.
Had the settlers in The Burrowers considered Indigenous people their equals, they might have succeeded in defeating the monsters. But the settlers are so intent upon maintaining their racist, myopic worldview that they essentially doom themselves and everyone. The film ends when the last Native who knows how to defeat the burrowers is unceremoniously lynched for the crime of being a Native American in the presence of a violent white supremacist.
The Burrowers is a fascinating and bleak snapshot of the American West. The film is visually stunning, utilizing wide shots and open space to create a sense of unease. There’s nowhere to run from the burrowers and nowhere to hide. Nighttime scenes are disturbingly dark with just enough light to witness the same horrors haunting the characters. The Burrowers is especially vexing upon a second viewing. While it’s easy enough to infer that the Natives Coffey and his men hunt aren’t the real cause of the disappearances the first time around, seeing them ignore obvious clues during a rewatch is infuriating. The most horrifying violence of The Burrowers stems from the hands of men, mainly settlers, not the burrowers themselves. And it is this violence that ultimately dooms the remaining survivors to be the prey of these creatures forever.
The Burrowers is currently available to stream on Tubi in the U.S.
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